College Baseball: Ex-Pretzel Ryan Hickey left his mark in DC

Ryan Hickey wanted to go far in baseball. He wound up going to the White House. After getting passed up by local colleges, the Freeport High School graduate detoured for two years at a junior college, then wound up starting in center field the past two years for George Washington University.

After getting passed up by local colleges, the Freeport High School graduate detoured for two years at a junior college, then wound up starting in center field the past two years for George Washington University.

He also lived three blocks from the White House.

“I was on 19th and Pennsylvania, and the White House is 1600 Pennsylvania,” Hickey said Tuesday from the airport before flying back to Freeport. “It was only a five- to seven-minute walk.

“Some days when we didn’t have a practice, I’d go for a run and make a loop from the Lincoln to the Washington to the White House. One of my relatives died in Vietnam. Sometimes on runs I’d stop by the Vietnam Memorial and check out his name on the wall for a couple of minutes.

“Some people take for granted being in Washington, D.C., but it’s pretty cool as a college student.”

What Hickey did in Washington was even more cool.

GW has long been a doormat in Atlantic-10 baseball. This year, the Colonials were picked to finish 15th in the A-10 under first-year coach Gregg Ritchie. Instead, GW won nine of its past 10 conference games and finished fifth in the league (26-32, 15-9) to make the conference tournament for the first time in seven years.

“It was very cool,” Hickey said. “That leaves an impression that we wanted to leave. This program is going in the direction that most college programs aren’t. The sky is the limit. They’ve got all the right pieces in place to make deep runs.

“People laugh when we say it now, but I wouldn’t be shocked to see them in the College World Series as soon as the next three or four years. They’ve done everything right.”

Including discovering Hickey, who started 95 games in center his junior and senior seasons at GW.

Former Freeport coach Tom Colborn said it should not have been so hard to discover Hickey, who was the NIC-10 MVP his senior season. He hit .485 with five home runs and 39 RBIs his senior season, and .508 with eight homers as a junior. As a sophomore, the three-year Pretzel starter hit .345.

“He was right there with the top position players we ever had as far as hitting and fielding and base running and just general baseball IQ,” Colborn said. “He was a three-year starter and could have played as a freshman. I thought Northern (Illinois) was crazy not to take him, but George Washington was a good fit for him.”

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Hickey spent two years at Oakton Community College in Des Plaines, then signed with GW.

“You see all these athletes from the area schools signing with Division I schools, and I felt I had the skill level to play at those universities as much as anyone else did. That gave me motivation going into my two-year school. But I couldn’t be happier how it turned out.”

Hickey has nine credits left and should graduate in December with a degree in geography and economics. He’d like to eventually work in marketing and development for a pro baseball or NBA team in New York or Chicago. In the meantime, he has a position as an associate intern to the athletics director lined up at GW.

“George Washington has a good base of baseball alums who really try to give back and present opportunities to the players. It is really setting me up,” Hickey said.

Hickey did his part to give back, helping GW get back on the winning baseball road.

“I couldn’t have asked for a better situation. To have the success we had my senior year is something I’ll never forget. It was something special. The seniors made it a point of emphasis to turn the program around.”